


Bright Star

by shakingshoulders



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Mockingjay, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:47:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakingshoulders/pseuds/shakingshoulders
Summary: I kick myself, scratching at my face with jagged nails for even wishing for that. I long to use his love as I once did to build myself up, the love that I took so for granted. The love that is now gone, never to return.Yet unanswered questions still remain. Why did he save me after I shot Coin? What could he have gained from that? Still, his voice creeps back into my head, and I hear “I must have loved you a lot.” Past tense.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys! comments are big motivators to write more :^) depending on how this does, i’ll finish chapter 2 and post it tomorrow. 
> 
> i’ve been a fan of thg since 2012, but my love for it has recently been rekindled, so i was inspired to start writing this. tbh i didn’t even know this fandom was still active so i hope there’s still people out there to read this 🥺 if anyone wants to be friends or share work with each other let me know because id love to meet some new people into the series! <3

I drift into consciousness in a dark room. Instantly, I become painfully aware of the stinging in my eyes, and I thrust them open as they begin to swell with tears. They feel as if they’ve been burned, clouded by wisps of the smoke that resonated from the bombs that haunt my nightmares. I try to raise my arms to wipe away the precipitation, but I find them bound tightly to the chair I rest in with thick rope. I think hazily that I should scream, but I’m unsure of who to cry out to. Nearly everyone who loves me is gone; the few exceptions who still breathe haven’t loved me for a long time. Regardless, they’re far away. No one from the past has reached out or attempted to contact me since I’ve returned to District Twelve. 

One name does ring in my mind though.  _ Peeta.  _ Still, I quickly brush the urge aside, and remind myself of what he’s become since we were separated in the Quell. What they made him into. I suppress my need to call for him like the feelings that still remain buried deep in my chest. We’re both much too damaged for that now. 

I cry out indiscriminately into the empty room in a shrill voice, yowling like an injured animal. Only then can I hear the footsteps approaching me. I begin to thrash wildly against my binding, but miscalculate my own momentum and throw the chair backwards towards the ground. Disoriented, I find myself falling for longer than expected, and land with a thud into damp and soggy earth. The collision breaks the back of the chair with a deafening crack, but I don’t have the strength to rise. I scan my eyes upward and realize the futility of attempting to strategize. I am laying in a rectangular cavern, twelve feet deep. 

I can hear the footsteps growing closer, and my heart pulses in my throat. They stop abruptly at the edge of my resting place. Suddenly, I feel the ground begin to rise beneath me and am lifted upward, stopping several feet or so from the surface. The footsteps gain a tangible form and bend over to face me. I’m met with the disembodied glare of Madge Undersee, her skin charred by licks of the firebombs. She kneels down to the ground and expels hot breath that hisses at me, then reaches a disfigured arm out to me. Swiftly, she fastens a red hot mockingjay pin into the already too scarred skin of my chest. I flinch, but the need to repress my suffering is still as strong as ever. 

She stands upright once more and backs away from the hole for a moment. When she reappears, I register a rusted shovel in her hands. “You did this to me, Katniss,” she snarls, and begins to shovel ashes down my throat. 

Prim comes next. “You couldn’t protect me, Katniss. You failed.” 

With each pair of footsteps that advances on me, the sound grows louder and louder. It gets harder and harder to breathe. “You didn’t save me, Katniss. It should have been you,” I hear Rue growl. I am enveloped by her namesaken regret, and find myself wracked with sobs. 

The voices begin to melt together, transforming into a sickening mantra that harasses my ears like the call of jabberjays. The ashes begin to fall in time with my heartbeat, and to the beat of the fading voices. They chant my name to me over and over again. “Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.” 

I wake up for real to the sound of myself screaming, and throw myself upright. Defensively, I clutch my hands to my sternum, embarrassed of the noise I must have made. I rise quickly and dress myself, pulling my father’s jacket over dirty clothes and slinging my bow and quiver across my shoulder. I keep my head down when I exit the house, avoiding the eyes of the District’s newcomers that I know watch me from their porches. I hear the whispers of my darkened screams upon lips across town.  _ The poor girl _ , they say.  _ I can’t imagine what she’s seen. _ But of course we’ve all seen things. And, in a way, I figure they aren’t much different than I am. Lost, beaten, traumatized. I just stick out more, forever condemned to be a caricature of all the loss and triumph that’s wracked Panem. 

Still, I am sick of always being a thing to pity, a star-crossed lover, a symbol of suffering in the name of change. I resent the gazes that follow me wherever I go, but I also understand them. I am something larger than myself now. They own me more than anyone does anymore. 

I pick up my pace to escape the visions that follow me, propelling myself further towards the outskirts of Twelve and the entrance of the forest. Just as I approach the remnants of a fence panel to slip into the woods, I catch the lone stare of a little girl on the porch of her newly built home. “Mommy,” she calls into a screen door behind her. “It’s the Mockingjay.” 

~~~~~

I return home before noon, my burlap hunting sack disappointingly lacking heft. I still require much practice in not allowing the voices that beat at my skill to come in. They make me lose my focus. 

The sun is high in the sky, and beams down on my mercilessly. It follows me like the eyes of the living and the dead do, pressing scornfully into my skin and radiating off of my clothing. Still, I tug the leather jacket tighter to my skin, my stomach churning as I envision shedding it and displaying to the world my scars, the gruesome patchwork of wounds and skin grafts between patches of preserved olive flesh. 

Lost in my own mind, I only hear the voice shouting to me as I’m reaching for the door handle. “Katniss! Hey, Katniss!”

I scowl at the sound of Peeta’s voice, calling to me from across the Victor’s Village. It conjures in me memories of dreams and despair, the sweet scent of cinnamon and the suffocation of his hands wrapped around my throat. It swirls around inside my head and meshes together with the cruel chants of my name that plague my nightmares, and I can’t stand to listen any longer. Without acknowledging him, I throw open the door and slam it harshly behind me. An impulse to shiver races through me, and I can nearly feel the deep, sighing expansion and contraction of his chest across the courtyard. 

Dr. Aurelius says I’d be surprised if I were to just give him a chance. I think he can sense that I’m still unsure I’m ready to. “He’s a lot like his old self now, Katniss,” he chides me over the phone. 

“You didn’t know him before,” I reply flatly. 

“I’m aware,” the doctor says, and I can hear the frown in his voice. “But I have witnessed his demeanor change. He isn’t cured, and he never will be, not completely, but it is manageable. He’s grown more and more skilled in sorting through his memories. He poses no threat to you.” I remain silent. 

“Even if you talk with him about everything just once, I truly believe it could provide you with some closure.” 

_ Closure.  _ I scoff. 

“He’s a very gentle person,” Dr. Aurelius states softly. “I think you can help each other heal in a way beyond the scope of my treatment.” 

I take offense to his observation. Maybe he is gentle compared to the hijacked mutt that tried to kill me, but Dr. Aurelius knows nothing of who the old Peeta was. The boy with a soft heart and calloused hands who took a beating to save my life. The soft-featured pillar of my safety after the Games, whose arms were the only thing that could soothe my night terrors. The most devoted person I have ever known, who loved me since childhood and never ceased even when I tried my hardest to push him away. A pit of guilt settles in my stomach at the thought, and I struggle to banish it.  _ I used him. I’m so selfish. _

__ “Katniss?” Dr Aurelius questions. I wince at the corrupted sound of my name. 

“Neither of you deserve to be alone. He has expressed interest to me in rebuilding your friend—“ 

The sound of a deadline abruptly cuts his voice off. I race away from the phone stand. 

Though it is still early afternoon, I feel exhausted, my limbs weighed down with self-loathing. I stumble through the death-pale house and find myself in the kitchen, my eyes fixing upon the table where my mother, Prim, and I cared for Gale after the flogging, then wandering up to the wall where a solemn-faced Peeta watched over me as I slept. Collapsing against a chair, I replay in my head every flash of him that comes to mind. His sturdy arms around me in our first Games, and the details that convinced me his love for me was more than an act. Our day together on the roof. The pearl that still resides in my jacket pocket and the hunger that I felt on the beach. His sunken eyes in the interviews, and the malice in them as he squeezed my throat. 

My mind drifts further and I picture Prim’s disfigured body, the imagined image that haunts every one of my dreams. The loss that permanently broke me, that exploded my insides and hollowed me out so that none of my old self remains, not even the little that was left during my stay in Thirteen. I allow the tears to flow freely now, and lament the fact that Peeta isn’t here to soothe the ache. Then I kick myself, scratching at my face with jagged nails for even wishing for that. I long to use his love as I once did to build myself up, the love that I took so for granted. The love that is now gone, never to return. 

Yet unanswered questions still remain. Why did he save me after I shot Coin? What could he have gained from that? Still, his voice creeps back into my head, and I hear “I must have loved you a lot.” Past tense. I sit up, trying to regain my composure, and shake my head quickly to expel him from my thoughts.

~~~~~~~

  
  


I spend the rest of the afternoon butchering my modest haul of three squirrels and a rabbit. I skin them sloppily and clean the carcasses with haste, until I reach the grey speckled rabbit, its fur intoxicatingly soft. I lift its limp body up to my eyeline for a closer look, furrowing my brow in thought. Suddenly, I allow it to slip through my waning fingers and it hits the chopping board with a dull thud. Wasting no time, I raise my knife and sever each of its hind feet, then rinse them under cool water. Remembering my mother’s method, I string them up with leather cord and hang them in my windowsill to dry. “For good luck,” I hear her voice echo. 

When the meat is sorted, I wrap it and place it gently into a knapsack, heading out the door with a purpose. I make a beeline for Haymitch’s, and rest the sack at the stoop of his door, patting it firmly for good measure. I knock once to alert him of its presence, but shuffle quickly away before he can berate me for feeding him in a drunken tirade. 

When I approach the other house, though, I feel my breath hitch in my throat. I figure that my best bet is to get it done as quickly as possible, and begin to sprint towards the house three doors down from mine, eyes fixed upon the doorstep. I figure this to be my most fruitful option, leaving food for Peeta to find. An apology for my behavior without having to speak, the trade he has always been so much better at, anyway. Just as I’m laying the meat down, ready to breathe a sigh of relief in my successful attempt to remain detached from all human contact, I hear the door swing open. 

I stand quickly, brushing off my legs and sheepishly embracing my core. When Peeta and I meet eyes, it’s as if I can just see past the storm that has clouded them to the true blue I’d once known. For the first time since the Quell, I see a vague smile in them. 

His question is harsher than his visage. “What are you doing here?” 

“Oh,” I stammer, caught off guard and thrust into reality. It was unfair for me to expect he’d changed as much as Dr. Aurelius had suggested. “I just wanted to leave you some squirrel I caught earlier,” I mumble.

His expression lights up at my words. “You were hunting,” he says matter-of-factly. “That’s one of the things that makes you happy. Real or not real?” 

“Real,” I admit softly, mind drifting momentarily to my father and Gale.  _ But not anymore. _

“I’ve been getting back into old routines too,” he says. “They’ve come back bit by bit.” 

I can’t help but offer a slight smile to his words. “Would you like to come in? I can show you,” he inquires, motioning into the white marble abyss behind him. At the sudden movement of his arm, I instinctively flinch. I can see the pain it dredges up in his eyes. 

“Yes,” I say, surprising both of us, “I’d love to.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I still don’t deserve him. I am suddenly both disturbed and invigorated by the fact we both have come back into our old roles: me, the callous, selfish, and spiteful powderkeg, and him, the gentle, kind, and patient dandelion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading :) i’d love to continue fleshing this out for a long while!

The inside of Peeta’s house is as mine is, a time capsule that has remained steadfast throughout the war. Nothing has changed, except for the new set of upright paintings opposite to the entrance. 

I eye the canvases quizzically, trying to absorb the fractured images that grace them. Some of them I recognize, the awning of the Mellark family’s bakery, my palm full of nightlock, Finnick’s trident. Others I don’t. I try not to dwell on Peeta’s depiction of a room with white walls and no windows. 

“They’re my memories,” he says quietly to fill the silence. I wonder if this is the way they really appear to him, jagged and distorted like shattered glass. 

“I can tell the difference now, mostly, between which are real and which aren’t. They’re just incomplete,” he frowns and shakes his head disdainfully, sending a shooting pain to my heart. 

“I’m sorry for not acknowledging you earlier,” is all I can force to leave my mouth. 

“It’s okay, Katniss,” he says reassuring me, moving his lips to form a sad smile. 

I still don’t deserve him. I am suddenly both disturbed and invigorated by the fact we both have come back into our old roles: me, the callous, selfish, and spiteful powderkeg, and him, the gentle, kind, and patient dandelion. It’s unlike I ever was anything other than my cold, introverted self, but, for awhile, Peeta was even crueler than I am. 

As if he can sense that I’m unsure of how to respond, he speaks again. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you since I returned, but I was also trying to respect your space.” 

I know this. It’s just what Peeta would do. “I want to talk to you too,” I assure him. 

We walk towards the living room, and I mark my stride with soft, careful steps, trying not to disturb the floor below me. Peeta clamors ahead of me, and sits down in a large, plush chair perpendicular to the rays of warm sunlight pouring through the windows. I watch the glow illuminate the shaggy hair that falls into his face, and the bright eyes that watch me as I lower myself onto the couch across from him. I clear my throat to tip him off that I won’t be the first to speak. “Why didn’t Gale come home?” He asks. 

“What?” The response falls harshly from my lips, and I watch Peeta’s face contort. “Sorry,” I add quickly. “That’s not the question I was expecting.” 

I know that it’s unfair to be treating Peeta this way. His curiosity is natural, and I remind myself he still isn’t who he once was, and it’s no longer his absolute goal to abstain from offending me. “He has a job in Two.” 

“Oh, I just—“ 

“Just what?” 

“I assumed you’d, you know, be with him. After the war,” Peeta says in a low tone. 

“Why would you assume that?” I accuse him. 

“When we were in the Capitol I spoke to him,” he says. “He said that after this was all over, it’d be up to you to choose between the two of us. And it’s not like you and I,” he trails off and grows distant in his gaze.

I avert my eyes to the particles suspended in the light that refracts off of him, and watch them float slowly to the ground, piling into small mounds of soot on the hardwood floor. I know what Peeta means without him finishing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I suddenly find the courage to speak the words I’ve been too afraid to utter to another soul. “His bombs killed Prim.” 

Peeta looks stunned, his eyes wide like a deer about to run. “Katniss, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never would have asked.” 

He doesn’t need to explain himself. I can see in his eyes that he meant no harm. Giving him a look of knowing, I find the courage to ask him the burning question I have for him as well. “Why did you stop me, after I shot Coin?” 

“I just couldn’t let you,” he replies valiantly. “We protect each other.” 

I fear that his words are but an echo of mine, but still I’ll take them. They lower my guard, and unclench my jaw, relaxing my shoulders as I do so. 

“Why did you kiss me in the Games?” He inquires. 

“I was trying to keep us alive,” I say, disregarding the subsequent kisses in the cave that left me longing for more. “We needed medicine. You were dying,” my voice hitches on the last word. 

“No,” he replies, “not in the first Games. In the Quell. On the Beach.” 

I feel the pearl grow heavy in my pocket. “I think I loved you,” I blurt out. But I don’t just think it. I know. In reflection since he was taken from me, I’ve come to terms with what I felt for him. I think that I’ve known I loved him since his heart stopped beating in the arena. I just couldn’t accept it until he was gone. 

“Oh,” he says softly. “Like, for show?”

“No,” I say. The following silence kills me. I can see the gears turning in his mind as he tries to make sense of what I have said. His pupils constrict slightly at first, then quickly dilate. I feel fear building in my chest, but before I can stand he tames the demons festering in his head, and his eyes return to normal. I wish so badly that I could pick his brain in this moment, because I can’t help but wonder if, somewhere, he can conjure the love that I know he felt for me too. 

“That’s good to know,” he says, pausing for a long moment before speaking again. “Katniss, I was hoping we could become friends again.” 

“I’d like that,” I tell him. 

Ignoring my better judgement, I hug him tightly as I leave. My heart flutters into my throat when I feel him embrace me back, and I breathe deeply with relief as we fit together just as easily as I remember. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I see it in his eyes again. Himself. The boy that I know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the quoted poem is a red, red rose by robert burns! :) i just omitted the dialectical spelling of the original.  
> thank you so much for the comments i’ve received so far, knowing there’s anyone out there enjoying this story is really special to me and excites me to keep writing! i’ve been brewing up some other fic ideas, too. thanks for reading, and enjoy!

The air tastes stale around me, and carries the pungent scent of rotting flesh. My breathing is quick and heavy, and I have my eyes pressed shut. When I force them open, my vision is assaulted by a sickly overcast sky, and looming storm clouds threatening to spill. As my sight clears, it doesn’t take long for me to see him. Why is he here? Why are we here? 

Sitting cross-legged in a pile of Twelve’s rubble is Peeta, concentrating intently on a painting in his lap. I’m unsure if he can hear me as I stride towards him, as his furrowed brow remains unwavering in focus. The closer I get, the more apparent the abuse becomes. He is once again the skinny, sunken, starved corpse of the Capitol’s creation, donning a white suit stained with ash. 

I try not to appear alarmed, afraid to frighten him. When I reach his side, I am surprised as he glances up at me with kind eyes and pats the ground beside him. I accept the offer and sit, leaning over to observe an intricately painted portrait of Finnick and Annie on their wedding day. “That’s beautiful,” I whisper. 

He raises the thin paper to reveal its one of many pages, compiled with attention and care, both happy and haunting images alike. “They’re our memories,” he says. 

Suddenly, we are thrown backwards in opposite directions. I hid the ground hard with a thud, momentarily blacking out and awakening to a shrill ringing in my ears. Rubble is imbedded into my palms, and they bleed freely, sending streams down my wrists. 

I can hear the silence in his chest before I reach him. I plant my hands firmly to it and shake him, trying to stir him from his dreams, but all I am met with is the sickening loll of his limp neck. “Peeta!” I shriek, frantic, feeling the panic rise in my heart and cloud my vision. 

I’m met with no response. “Finnick!” I yell in futility. “Help me! Help him! Please!” 

But Finnick isn’t really here this time, Peeta’s acrylic depiction of his lost face gazing emptily from the page beside him to the sky. I rock back and forth as the minutes surge by, sobbing and grabbing at my face with bloodstained hands. Then I hear the canon. 

I wake up screaming his name, and instead of being filled with relief at the sight of my room in the morning sun, I am still overtaken with the nightmare for a few minutes more, continuing to thrash and cry out for him. 

But the air is less heavy here. It doesn’t carry the same sickly sweetness of decay that my nightmares do. After a few moments pass, I’m able to calm myself enough to ground back into reality.  _ That’s the first dream I’ve had without Prim in it for a long time.  _

The pounding at my door draws me from my thoughts. “Go away Haymitch!” I scream. “Sorry for waking you. Nightmare.”

The door slowly creeps open, squeaking on its hinges. “Katniss?” A voice calls. “Can I come in?” 

I try to remain as silent as possible, as if somehow staying still and holding my breath could counteract the screeches of terror that had just erupted out of me. But he is determined, and, despite my lack of response, I trace his footsteps throughout the house until they reach me, and he raps once softly at the entrance. 

When he steps in, I’m disturbed by his disheveled appearance, but I remind myself I should really take a look in the mirror, and imagine fr His curls are matted to his emollient forehead with sweat, and his pale flash glistens in the morning light. His eyes are stormy and clouded, squinted in confusion, his brow furrowed in concern. I’m sure I look just the same. “I heard you yelling for me,” he says. 

My face flushes red with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say sheepishly. “It was just a night terror.” 

“I get them too,” he says with a knowing look. 

“I know,” I reply. He’s been through just as much as I have. 

“No, I mean about you. I have them about you too.” 

His words surprise me. “I assumed that after…” I trail off for a moment. “That you would just dream about the Capitol. And the war.” I’m struck with realization like a ton of bricks. “Oh,” I say. “You dream about me being a mutt.” 

“I don’t think you give my memory enough credit, Katniss,” Peeta says sadly. “I dream about Cato’s face. Your screams when they shot the man in Eleven. My painting of Rue in the training room. Losing you in the Quell.”

I sense that he can see my eyes widen at the last word, and he doesn’t press the subject anymore. Getting up to leave the room, he brushes off his shirt and turns swiftly on his heels. 

“Peeta, wait,” I say, eyes threatening to spill, heart pounding in my chest. “Stay with me.” 

He gazes quizzically at me before rounding the bed to lay beside me. I pull back the sheets so he can burrow under them, and breath easily with sweet relief when I feel his arms around me. To my dismay, I start to cry, my face ugly and scrunched with sadness, burned by red-hot tears. Trying to brush aside my embarrassment, I remind myself of who the boy beside me is.  _ He’s still Peeta,  _ I tell myself.  _ I can trust him.  _

__ Lowering my guard and confirming my comfort, he raises his hands to my cheeks and thumbs away the tears. “Always,” he tells me in a hushed voice. 

I wake again to his fingers twirling through my hair. Careful to not tip him off to my consciousness, I keep my eyes tightly closed. Though I feel safe, I’m nearly disturbed by his presence next to me, still so distant and foreign. I wish more than anything that I could escape my mind, so riddled with the horrors of the past. The guilt settles in as the rain begins to fall against the window, cold and purposeful.  _ How did we get here, Peeta? _ I have a hard time comforting myself from the thought of us parting during the Quell, and struggle to suppress my whimpering. When they inexorably escape my mouth, I feign dreaming. 

He shushes me caringly, adding pressure to his touch to my skin. Under his breath, he’s whispering something to himself in words so low I can’t make them out, except for bits and pieces that barely catch. “Newly sprung,” I hear, followed by silence. “Like the melody...in tune.” 

My heart flutters as I hear his voice pick up on the last verse. “And fare thee well, my only love,” he sighs. “And fare thee well awhile. And I will come again my love, though it were ten thousand mile.” 

I don’t recognize the ballad, and try hard not to dwell on its meaning. Afraid to entertain my fantasy any longer, I sit up to break our embrace. 

Peeta slips back to his own house by mid afternoon, but isn’t gone for long. When night falls and the air grows cold, I find him at my doorstep bearing a basket of bread. 

“Cheese buns,” I smile into my words as I turn one in my hands. “Thank you.” 

“I remembered,” he says shyly. 

I see it in his eyes again. Himself. The boy that I know. Sensing what he’s afraid to ask, I invite him to stay the night with me. “It’ll help me a lot,” I promise him, and I can see his shoulders relax in relief. 

My heart thumps slowly in sadness. Peeta Mellark, who lost his family, his mind, and himself, still suppressing his wishes and acting only to serve me. Who needs comfort just as I do, but will only accept it so long as he knows I’m benefitting. I curse myself again for my cowardice by digging my nails into the sides of my thighs under the table. 

I pretend to be asleep quickly that night, afraid of what could ooze from my mouth next to Peeta under the moonlight. He doesn’t deserve to deal with me toying with him anymore. If I had accepted my feelings sooner, maybe we wouldn’t be here. It’s much too late now. 

Settling into his strong arms and finally ready to submit to sleep, he begins to quiver. At first, it’s just a tremor: subtly twitching muscles, slowly curling toes and fingers. Then comes the sweat as his skin turns to fire, his face visibly reddening in the pale light. “Peeta,” I murmur, jostling him softly as not to give him too great of a start. “It’s just a nightmare Peeta. Wake up, it’s okay. You’re okay.” I’m surprised at how easily the comforting words flow from my lips. 

When his eyes shoot open, they’re dilated and wild, and I fear at first that I’ve done the wrong thing by waking him. Maybe he’s still trapped in an episode, just awake now, ready to lunge at me and tear apart my wasted body limb by limb. It doesn’t take long for them to crystallize, though, and he stares up at me as his vengeful glare disappears. “Are you okay? You look upset,” he mumbles in slurred, sleepy speech. I hate him for it. Still worrying about me. 

“You were the one having the nightmare.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, ashamed. 

“Please don’t,” I tell him firmly. “We protect each other. Now sit up.” 

Still in a daze, he lifts his torso and i readjust myself on my back, arm outstretched beside me. “Come here,” I have to instruct him as he gazes at me in confusion. 

Sheepishly, he lowers himself into my arms and presses his head against my chest, a position I’ve assumed next to him so many times before. I hold him close to me, still frustrated with the barrier between my skin that touches his, wishing we could meld into one. I squeeze him so tightly that I’m afraid of hurting him, but he refrains from objecting. As I drift out of consciousness, I fantasize of all the things I’ll finally tell him tomorrow. 

When I wake, he’s already gone. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bright star,” he begins slowly, savoring every syllable that rolls from his tongue, “would I were steadfast as thou art...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my favorite chapter so far! hope you enjoy :) poem is bright star by john keats.

And so begins the suffocating routine, too reminiscent of our fractured past. Peeta and I remain separate during the day, going about our business in solitude. He bakes, I hunt. We seem to exist completely independently. 

Then, just before sunset, he comes through my door and, suddenly, everything in the world seems good again. Each night, I grow drunk on warm stew and fresh bread, paired with the sweet, tandem aroma of the cinnamon clinging to Peeta’s clothes and the candles I leave burning. 

But it doesn’t last for long. I can feel the yearning that we have for each other. Nights bleed into late breakfasts and commence again with early dinners. Drawing on my foggy visions of the nightmare that I had the first time he slept beside me, I suggest the memory book to him. 

It starts slowly at first, and then it consumes us. We spend hours pouring over it, but as the pages grow fuller and fuller I begin to wonder if we work for so long just to cling to an excuse to be near each other. But still, I never speak on it. Our lone daylight hours are what keeps our friendship justified in my mind, what suppresses my hopes and keeps them at bay. We live separately. That’s what friends do. 

One late morning, though, when the sun is high but the air is chilled, I feel like I’m about to burst. My mind is crashing against a jagged shore, replaying horrors of war and loss over and over again. I need to be beside him, though I’m too prideful to admit it. I come to his door with a satchel of deer, an excuse to hide my neediness. 

Though the sun is plain in the sky, uncovered by clouds, the day remains heavy and cold. The dry winter air assaults my lips, leaving them taught and matte so that when I stretch my mouth tiny, painful cracks are left behind. I lick at the wounds as I knock softly at Peeta’s door. 

The lack of answer immediately bothers me. “Peeta?” I call through the silence. Seconds build to minutes that still bring no response. Growing frantic, I remind myself of all the places he could be. In town, selling bread or trying to bargain for more ingredients for it. In the meadow, painting the landscape. In bed, sleeping soundly. But no. I feel the wrongness in my chest, I’m overtaken with foreboding. Without giving it another thought, I press my shoulder to the door and jam it open. 

I try to conceal the strained worry in my voice. Scanning the house, I don’t see him anywhere.  _ He’s just in town, _ I tell myself, trying to relax and soothe my anxiety. Nothing seems amiss in the house. Pots and pans still hang neatly from well-ordered hooks, canvases like the walls, and the entire abode has retained its sickly white color scheme. 

Still, everything about this is unnerving. The house rings with muffled chatter, which at first sounds static. Then, it grows louder, until I’m finally able to make it out. Is that… whimpering? 

I find Peeta in the living room, torso doubled over as if he’s about to throw up. He’s tightly clutching the arm of the couch, his knuckles white with the iron grip. When I enter the room his eyes shoot up at me: deranged and wild, drowning in precipitation, darkened with terror. His irises are almost completely black by his widened pupils, and his mouth gapes open in awe. What am I supposed to do? I try to suppress my fear for my own safety, and stand still watching him, dumbfounded. 

His head jolts back and forth frantically, like he’s trying to shake the monsters from his thoughts. We stand frozen like this for what feels like hours before he grows limp, collapsing against the couch with a heaving sigh. Why can I still find nothing to say? I punish myself again. He would know exactly what to do to comfort me, were the roles reversed. 

“Katniss? Are you real?” He questions. 

“Yes,” I assure him. “I’m here. It’s me.” 

He is disheveled and flighty, shaking and moving his eyes rapidly around the room. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I never wanted you to see that.” 

My heart is broken by the wall that still remains between us. He still won’t accept the help I try to extend to him. He still can’t let me in, even though I know I can’t blame him for it. “District Twelve is gone,” he prompts me. “Real or not real?” 

“Real, the old one is. But they’re rebuilding. We still live in Twelve.” 

“Oh,” he sighs in disappointment. “For a second I thought… I thought it was all just a dream.” 

His next question shoots daggers through my heart. “Everyone who loves me is dead,” he asks. “Real or not real?” 

I’m quick to answer. “Not real,” I say squeezing his arm.

He moves in with me that afternoon. As we’re unpacking boxes of his belongings and shelving them beside mine, he once again feels the need to apologize. I try to console him, promising it’s unnecessary, but I can see in his expression he isn’t satisfied by my words. I suddenly understand why he’s still so apprehensive of coexisting with me: he’s trying to protect me from seeing his episodes. 

_ Or maybe he just doesn’t want me there,  _ I remind myself. This isn’t what normal friends do, anyway. Friends need space from each other. It’s not like—

Yet, still, here he is, glowing golden under the light and positioning books neatly onto shelves in my house.  _ Our _ house. I feel my mouth gaping wide as I watch him, awestruck. My heart dances for every aspect of him. It’s electrified by the way his curls fall in his eyes, the freckles on the tops of his shoulders, and the slanted upward turn of his blushing lips. 

I want to tell him that I can’t live without him. I want him to know that he is the only source of my happiness, and no matter how unhealthy that may be or how horrible at love I am I want to spend every second of the rest of my life in his arms. 

__ Seizing the impulse, I move forward to embrace him and breathe deeply into his chest. We stand stagnant for a few moments before we begin to wobble, so we shuffle over and fall onto the sofa. I wish more than anything that he would speak. He has the way with words, not me, and I’m dying to talk to him but I just cannot fathom what to say. 

Uncomfortable in the silence, I decide to speak. “Why do you have all of these new books?” I ask. 

“I’ve been reading a lot,” he admits. “There’s so much material out now that was banned by the Capitol.” 

This isn’t something I’d ever considered, really, what was kept from the Districts under their control. But now, I am painfully curious. 

“I can read you something if you’d like,” he whispers to me, as if he’d just been inside of my mind. “A lot of the poetry reminds me of you.” 

“Okay,” I murmur back quietly, settling into his chest so I don’t have to find more words. He holds my head steady as he reaches across me to pick up the book from the wooden end table beside us. 

Clearing his throat, I can feel his eyes gazing down at me past the pages for just a moment. “Bright star,” he begins slowly, savoring every syllable that rolls from his tongue, “would I were steadfast as thou art

Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, 

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite 

The moving waters at their priestlike task 

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask 

Of snow on the mountains and the moors—“

I don’t understand all of the words, but I don’t need to. The essence of their meaning overtakes me and burns bright in my chest.

“No,” Peeta says firmly. “Yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel forever it’s soft fall and swell,

Awake forever in sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever— or else swoon to death.” 

Drawing myself out of the trance he placed me in, I lift my head to meet his eyes. I’m quiet for a long while, trying to form the proper words to thank him for reciting the poem to me. Then I feel the impulse again. The hunger. I’ve spent months dreaming of the possible ways that this moment could transpire, and though most of those outcomes terrify me, I can hardly bring myself to stop. I lean in, breaking our staring contest to press my lips against his. 

He tenses up, pursing his mouth tightly for but a second, and I fear I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. Just when it finally felt like I had Peeta back, of course I selfishly destroy it.  _ We’re too damaged for that now,  _ I remind myself. Then he kisses me back. 

He relaxes his expression and parts his mouth, moving one hand to caress my cheek and tightening the other around my waste. Soon, he is kissing me with more tenacity than I him, moving against my body in rhythm and threatening to swallow me whole. When the kiss breaks, I collapse into him, trying to sink further into his arms. Only when I shift to look at his face do I notice the tears pooling in his eyes and dripping steadily down his flushed cheeks. In the moonlight, in a strange way, I find the streams to be beautiful. 

I raise a blistered hand to his cheek, and he turns his head to melt into it. Shutting his eyes with soft kisses, I hear him whisper something just unintelligible. “What did you say?” I coo back. 

“You love me,” he says louder. “Real or not real?” 

Feeling tears of my own begin to swell, I laugh at the ease it takes me to answer his question. I’m still unsure of if he can see it now, if his memory is intact enough to decipher my past wants and actions, but in retrospect it is so apparent to me that it has always been him. “Real,” I assure him. 


End file.
